One of my local yarn shops carries YarnTrekker’s Detour Minis—cute little 52-yard skeins of yarn in a variety of colors. I love them, but what are you going to do with the bitsy things? Knit something in a lot of colors, naturally. I usually avoid colorwork (I hate weaving in ends), but a rainbow scarf gave me the perfect excuse to snatch up some of those scrumptious little skeins.
I found a lovely scarf pattern on Ravelry in fingering weight yarn (Rainbow Scarf by Jenny Lang), but it was done in linen stitch. I loved the woven look, but I did not love the idea of flipping the yarn back and forth between every stitch. I lazily decided on garter stitch instead.
I wanted a really long narrow scarf, and after blocking this thing is just shy of eight feet long. I’m pretty sure it’ll stretch when I actually wear it and wind up a little over eight feet.
If you don’t have Detour Minis at your yarn shop (I think it’s a regional thing) there are a number of yarn companies that make short skeins of fingering weight, like The Fiber Seed Sprout Seedlings used in the pattern mentioned above.
Finished Size
approximately 7 ft. 10 in. by 3.5 in.
Yarn
fingering weight, 50ish yards in six colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple); sample was knit with YarnTrekker Detour Minis
Gauge
4.9 stitches per inch
Needle Size
4 US / 3.5mm
Note how little purple (used to bind off) is left
Notes
Gauge isn’t usually crucial for a scarf, but since this guy is knit on the long edge, you might play it safe and do a gauge swatch so it doesn’t turn out significantly shorter or longer than you expect. And remember when working your gauge swatch that garter stitch—especially in a piece like this—is going to stretch.
The cast-on and bind-off edges each effectively add a row; so for those colors, you’ll only knit 7 rows instead of 8.
Pattern
With red, cast on 465 st.—make sure your cast-on is loose so it won’t pull the edge of the scarf too tight
Knit 7 rows
Switch to orange yarn, knit 8 rows
Switch to yellow yarn, knit 8 rows
Switch to green yarn, knit 8 rows
Switch to blue yarn, knit 8 rows
Switch to purple yarn, knit 7 rows
Bind off: *knit 2 stitches together through the back loops, slip resulting stitch back to the left needle; repeat from * until one stitch remains. Tie off last stitch
Weave in ends. Wash (or give it a good spritzing with water) and block.
